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Monday, May 18, 2015

Be The Best Mom You Can Be: A Book Review #FCBlogger

**I received a copy of this book for review. All thoughts are 100% my own.

"Your greatest contribution to the Kingdom of God may not be something you do, but someone you raise."- Andy Stanley

What an idea this is in a world where our successes are so often measured by material scales- how much money you make, how much stuff you have, etc. that perhaps the great plan that God has for our life is simply to be the best mom we can be and raise our children to live for Him. But what a difficult task that is in a society like ours!

If I were to be honest, I have many times wondered if our own mothers had it easier- raising children in a world without social media. Don't get me wrong, in many ways social media can be a great tool in parenting. I love knowing that if I'm having an issue I can call on my network of moms that have been there to get advice and input. I love that I can find fun activities to keep the kids occupied. I love that we can keep in touch with loved ones near and far.

Still, it also opens up our homes for the world, allowing everyone to have an opinion on our parenting styles. It adds an unrealistic expectation that we have to be the perfect mom and live up to all those moms on Pinterest with their perfect parties and fancy lunchboxes . It gives us this notion that if we're not doing it like the other moms in our network, we must be doing it wrong. That's a lot of pressure we put on ourselves as moms.

But it's not just social media that places challenges on us as mothers. The world in general, is well... crazy! Everywhere we look our children are being bombarded with messages of sex, drugs and violence. It's scary, and as a parent I wonder how to teach my children to love God in a culture where doing so isn't the popular choice. I wonder how to teach them to praise God, not praise stuff. So, how do we mother our children in this world? This is the topic of Marina Slayton's new book, Be the Best Mom You Can Be.

Marina Slayton and her husband, Gregory, best-selling author of Be a Better Dad Today, reveal the secrets to finding true joy in the sacred role of motherhood. Using story, humor, empathy, common sense, and straight talk--grounded in reality and personal experience--Be the Best Mom You Can Behelps readers from the best and most influential mothers in history. The book centers on a mother's desire for wisdom and her commitment to the well being of her husband and children and provides six time-tested principles (the Six Secrets) for being a truly great mom.In the tradition of Stormie Omartian's and Barbara Rainey's books, the Slaytons offer value-based inspiration, a warm and personal tone, and insightful secrets to both educate and equip moms to be the best mothers they can be. This book will help any mom who wants to grow in her sacred role. Women who need encouragement or advice or who feel ill-equipped to be mothers will find the straight-forward evangelical perspective and practical advice life-changing.

Now, I'll admit, when I first started reading this it took me a bit to get into it. Honestly, it may have just been I wasn't in the right mood just yet... but it got off to a slow start. I somehow felt that this book was going to tell me what I was doing wrong. Like I said, this was probably my mindset at the moment more than anything I was actually reading, because as I kept reading I realized that this was not the case at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The book offers practical advice to help us as mothers to raise our kids the way God intended- and acknowledges that parenting is not one size fits all. We all have our gifts and our strengths, and trying to living up to the world's ideal of a perfect mom only leads to discontentment. It provides much food for thought on how we should teach our children to be of good character and strong faith rather than worried about being the best at everything or wanting the best of everything. And at the end of the day, isn't that what's really most important? If we teach our kids that they must be the best and have the most accomplishments, is that truly better than being a GOOD person?

If you'd like to learn more about being the best mom you can be, the book is available to purchase at Family Christian!